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Lenin: Prophet of World Revolution from the East
Author(s): Stanley W. Page

Source: The Russian Review, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Apr., 1952), pp. 67-77
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Lenin: Prophet of World Revolution
from the East
BY STANLEY W. PAGE
PERHAPS the most momentous phenomenon of the twentieth

century is the dynamic awakening of Asia. If at this momen
Russia appears as the prime menace to Western civilization, it i
largely because she has managed to assume hegemony in the under
fed Asiatic half of the world, which is presently rising up to claim its
portion of the fruits of this planet. One of the earliest prophets of
Asia in revolt was Lenin. Throughout most of his life he confidently
expected a world revolution born in the West, as originally predicte
by Marx. But the logic of overpowering circumstance forced Lenin
just prior to his death, to admit that the world revolution would
emerge from the East.
In 1902 Lenin wrote that Russia would be the initial point of
world upheaval. The proletarian-led overthrow of the Tsar, h
claimed, would set in revolutionary motion not only thle working
classes of the Western nations but also the peoples of Asia.' What
impelled the hard-headed Lenin to cast the Russian proletariat in so
grandiose an international r81e? Essentially it was the realization
that even if the proletariat of Russia led a successful revolutio
against the autocracy and then seized power, it could not brin
socialism to agrarian Russia. If the proletarian party could not
possibly produce a socialist society, then what claim did it, or its
self-appointed leader, Lenin, have to inclusion in the ranks of the
Marxists? Lenin discovered the Russian proletarian party's Marxis
reason for existence in the Western revolution, for which Russia
would be the beacon. The victorious Western proletariat would
then turn to Russia and help build up her industry and technology
thus paving the way for socialism in Russia.2 In 1902 Lenin, to all
'Lenin, Sochineniya, Moscow, 1931, 2nd edition, v. IV, p. 382. "History has now
placed before us an immediate task which is far more revolutionary than the im
mediate tasks of the proletariat of any other country. The completion of this task
the destruction of the strongest bulwark of European, and we may even say Asiatic,
reaction would make of the Russian proletariat the vanguard of the internationa
proletarian revolution."
2S. W. Page, "The Russian Proletariat and World Revolution: Lenin's Views to
1914," The American Slavic and East European Review, February, 1951, pp. 2-3.
67
68 The Russian Review
appearances, included the Asiatic revolution in his thinking for good

measure. At the time he considered it the less important part of his
famous prophecy, but it turned out to be of greater consequence than
his speculations on the Western revolution.
Despite the failure of the parties of the working class to achieve
their goals in the Russian Revolution of 1905, Lenin claimed or
inferred on numerous later occasions that 1905 had inspired a chain
reaction of revolutionary incidents affecting almost every corner of
Asia.3 In October of 1908, commenting on the Young Turk revolt
and the concomitant risings in Azerbaidjan, Lenin wrote that the
"awakening to political life of the Asiatic peoples received special
impetus from the Russo-Japanese War and the Russian Revolution
[of 1905]."4 In his comment of subsequent years on Asiatic revolt,
Lenin omitted all reference to the Japanese victory (probably be-
cause this would have weakened his argument regarding the effect
of the Russian Revolution) and, simultaneously, stressed his estimate
of the impact of 1905 upon Asia.
A very good case could be drawn up to prove that the original
irritants of the Russian Revolution and the Asiatic revolutionary
movements were such Western stimuli as nationalism and the in-
dustrial revolution. Nevertheless, during the years following 1905,
Lenin, unlike other Marxists, took an almost proprietary interest in
anything resembling popular insurgence in Asia, allowing few in-
cidents to pass without exhaustive comment. Usually Lenin spoke
encouragingly of these movements and attempted to link them in
some way with the concept of world revolution.5
3In Pravda, No. 103, May, 1913, he wrote, "Following upon the Russian move-
ment of 1905, the democratic revolution seized all Asia-Turkey, Persia, China.
There is growing fermentation in British India. It is interesting that the revolution-
ary-democratic movement has presently also reached the Dutch Indies, the island
of Java and other colonies of Holland, having a population of 40 million people."
Lenin, Sobranyie Sochinenii, Moscow, 1923, 1st edition, v. XIX, p. 25. See also
Leninskii Sbornik, ed. L. B. Kamenev, Moscow, 1926, v. V., pp. 48-50, citing a
speech by Lenin in Zurich, January, 1917. "[The Revolution of 1905] . . . not only
achieved the awakening of the largest and most backward country of Europe . . .
it also brought all of Asia into movement. The revolutions in Turkey, Persia, and
China proved that the mighty upheaval of 1905 left deep traces and that its effect,
as seen in the progress of hundreds of millions of people cannot be erased."
4Lenin, Sochineniya, 1st edition, v. IX, Part I, p. 138.
5At the Bolshevik Congress of January, 1912, Lenin proposed a resolution greet-
ing the revolutionary republicans of China. "The Chinese Revolution," he said,
"is, from our point of view, an event of world importance toward achieving the
liberation of Asia and the overthrow of European mastery." Cf. Lenin, Sochineniya,
Lenin: Prophet of World Revolution 69
Why should Lenin, Marxist that he was, have taken such note of
democratic stirrings in Asia? Essentially this was part and parcel of
his campaign to demonstrate that even if the proletarian-led Rev-
olution of 1905 had not overthrown the Tsar, it had still succeeded,
for it established the correct pattern for the next revolution. Among
other things, it had, in the Moscow insurrection of December, pro-
vided the first modern example of militant working-class martyrdom
since the Paris Commune.6 Besides this, said Lenin in effect as he
pointed to Asia, the Revolution of 1905 had given the predicted
impulsion to world revolution. It was all the more necessary for
Lenin to stress the Asiatic revolutions, since the Western prole-
tariat, which Lenin had relied upon to bring socialism to Russia, had
remained all too unresponsive to the events of 1905 in Russia.7
At the same time, due credit must be given Lenin as the sole
Marxist of his day to regard the Asiatic masses as desirous of rights
very similar to those demanded by underprivileged members of
Western society, and to recognize their potentialities for popular
revolution. This fact demands closer attention. Marxist though he
was, Lenin was also a Russian. The Russians, whose country strad-
dles Europe and Asia, have always understood the Asiatic mind
better than have the Westerners. In addition to this, Lenin was a
Marxist in a land of peasants.8 Since he desired violent overthrow
of the Russian government, he had to concede the importance, how-
ever secondary in terms of leadership, of the revolutionary force of an
aroused peasantry. It was Lenin who in 1905 first advanced the
thesis, so alien to orthodox Marxism and to Trotsky, that the Rus-
sian revolution could be won only by a peasant-proletariat alliance.
1st edition, v. XIX, p. 252. A similar resolution expressed full sympathy with the
Persian people, struggling against the "robber policy of Russia" and, in particular,
with the Social-Democratic Party of Persia.
6Lenin, Sochineniya, 2nd edition, v. XII, p. 213. ". . The workers' party sees
in the direct revolutionary fight of the masses, in the October and December strug-
gles of the year 1905, the greatest movement of the proletariat since the Commune
. . only in the development of such forms of struggle rests the pledge of future rev-
olutionary successes . . . these forms of battle must serve us as guide lights in the
business of educating new generations of fighters."
7Lenin did try to show that 1905 had affected Western Europe. However, the
sole instances of evidence he could muster to prove his point were the victory of the
universal suffrage movement in Austria, street demonstrations in Vienna and Prague
around November 1, 1905 (Cf. Leninskii Sbornik, v. V. pp. 48-50) and the fact that
Kautsky had hailed the Bolshevik-led Moscow uprising of December, 1905 as a suc-
cess for having held out for a week against regular militia. Lenin, Sochineniya,
2nd edition, v. XII, pp. 211-213.
The inference here is that Lenin, unable to conceive of a revolution in

Russia without participation of the peasants, by the same token,
sensed the revolutionary potential of the Asiatic countries. Al-
though these lands possessed virtually no industrial proletariat, they
were actually not far behind Russia, whose industrial revolution,
even by 1917, was still in its infancy.
It was the Chinese movement which interested Lenin the most-
and for good reasons. The Chinese Revolution, as Lenin saw it, was,
in many of its facets, the Russian Revolution of 1905 transplanted
to the land of the Manchus. China's upheaval was not proletarian
led, it was true; China had no industry. But the Revolution of 1911
succeeded, where the Russian masses had failed, in overthrowing the
monarchy through a collaboration of bourgeois liberals and peasants.
As Lenin pointed out in 1912, "Chinese freedom was won by a union
of peasant democracy and bourgeois liberalism. Whether the peas-
ants, not led by a proletarian party, would be able to support their
democratic position against the liberals, who await only the appro-
priate moment to turn to the right, remains to be seen."9
In the Chinese movement, Lenin reserved special esteem for the
Nationalist Kuomintang Party, headed by Sun-Yat-Sen. This
party Lenin regarded as analogous to the Narodniki, revolutionaries
of the corresponding historical period in Russia, who dreamed that
their motherland might skip the capitalist way-station on her road
to socialism.10 It seems evident from this that Lenin was further
interested in Asia because in those retrograde areas of the world he
perceived laboratory conditions directly applicable to the Russian
agrarian scene and hence worth studying. From the political stand-
point, the parallels drawn by Lenin between Russian and Asiatic
revolution might instill optimism among the Bolshevik following,
downcast as it was by the lack of revolutionary reverberations of
1905 in Europe.
The marked social and political ferment in pre-1914 Asia con-
trasted so sharply with pre-war Europe that Lenin, disquieted per-
haps, found himself constrained, in May, 1913, to write an article
in Pravda entitled "Backward Europe and Progressive Asia.""
8For a revealing comment upon Lenin not only as a Russian but as a person re-
sembling the Russian peasant in his mannerisms and way of thinking, see L. Trot-
sky, "The Russian in Lenin," Current History, March, 1924, pp. 1024-1026.
9Lenin, Sochineniya, 1st edition, v. XIX, p. 22.
'1A. E. Khorov, "Lenin i natsionalnyi vopros," Lenin i Fostok, Sbornik Statei,
2nd edition, Moscow, 1925, p. 42.
"Lenin, Sochineniya, 1st edition, v. XIX, pp. 30-31.
In Asia, everywhere, he wrote, "the mighty democratic movement grows,

spreads, and strengthens itself. [In Asia] the bourgeoisie still moves with the
people against the feudal reaction. [National independence or unity not hav-
ing been achieved by Asiatic countries, the bourgeoisie, from the Marxist view-
point, still played a constructive role.] Hundreds of millions of people are there
awakening to life, to light, to freedom. What joy this world movement evokes
in the hearts of all conscientious workers, knowing that the path to collectivism
lies through democracy-with what feelings of sympathy for young Asia are all
honest democrats filled.
But . . . progressive Europe [this reference to the European bourgeoisie was
meant sarcastically] robs China and helps the enemies of democracy, the
enemies of freedom in China. Ail those who rule Europe, the entire bourgeoisie,
are united with all the forces of reaction and feudalism [medievalism] in China.
However, all of young Asia, i.e., the hundreds of millions of toilers of Asia,
have a trustworthy ally in the person of the proletariat of all the civilized
countries. No power on earth can prevent their victory, which will liberate not
only the peoples of Europe [and Russia] but also the peoples of Asia.
Whatever the dormant nature of the Western proletariat, and in

1905 Lenin attributed it to exhaustion from the long struggle against
bourgeois reaction,12 the power and the will to revolt was inherent in
it. The West, as Marx had proven, was going to do the really heavy
work of the world revolution and would save the Asiatics from the
Western bourgeoisie and their reactionary allies. The spark of 1905
had seemingly failed to detonate the powder magazine. A bigger
spark was nascent as 1914 approached.
When World War I broke out, Lenin believed that capitalism's
hour of doom had struck. He expected that the socialist parties of
each country would seize the opportunity afforded by the arming of
the working class and instruct their faithful flocks to turn their weap-
ons against their own governments instead of those of their supposed
enemies. Civil strife everywhere instead of international imperialist
war would be the result. This would bring about the world revolu-
tion and the unity of the proletariat called for by the Communist
Manifesto. But Lenin was doomed to disappointment. The social-
ists of the various countries chose to rally to their national banners
rather than fight against them.
In 1916, Lenin, pacing restlessly in Swiss exile and impatiently
awaiting the revolution which should have been breaking in war-
torn Western Europe, wrote his well-known work, Imperialism, the
Highest Stage of Capitalism. This pamphlet, composed between
January and July of 1916, coincident with the dialectical squabbles
surrounding the Kienthal Conference held on April 24, was intended
12Lenin Sochineniya, 2nd edition, v. VII, p. 191, pp. 297-298.
to prove beyond question that imperialist wars were inevitable out-

growths of capitalism. Therefore, to end such wars, no compromise
with capitalism was permissible on the part of the working-class
leaders. That is to say, the left socialist movement must contemplate
no peace based upon the continuing existence of bourgeois govern-
ments.13 This would be foolish in any case, since, as Lenin's work
explained, imperialism as the dying phase of capitalism was also the
prelude to world revolution.
"The tens of millions of dead and maimed left by the 'war,'"
wrote Lenin in the preface to the French edition of his book, "C .
open the eyes of the tens of millions of people who are downtrodden,
oppressed . . . and duped by the bourgeoisie, with unprecedented
rapidity. Thus out of the universal ruin caused by a war, a world-
wide revolutionary crisis is arising which . . . cannot end in any
other way than in a proletarian revolution and its victory."14
Having proved the revolution imminent, Lenin had to explain
what still supported the rotten house of capitalism. This survived,
he postulated, because of the "enormous super-profits" gained by
plundering the whole world. These made it possible for the im-
perialists "to bribe the labor leaders and the upper stratum of the
labor aristocracy. . . . This stratum of workers become bourgeoisie
. .who are quite philistine in their mode of life, in the size of their
earnings and in their outlook, serves as the principal prop of the
Second International, and, in our days, the principal social (not
military) prop of the bourgeoisie."l5 According to Lenin, then, world
revolution was just below the horizon, though temporarily delayed
by the treacherous leaders of the Second International. However,
Lenin hopefully pointed to the diminished possibility that labor
would attain its ends through "opportunistic" methods. In England,
l3In an article published in the Bolshevik paper Sotsial-Demokrat on March 25,
1916, Lenin declared, "Our 'peace program' should consist finally in explaining that
neither the imperialist powers nor the imperialist bourgeoisie are capable of achiev-
ing a democratic peace. This peace must be sought and striven for-ahead of us,
in the socialist revolution of the proletariat, and not behind us in the reactionary
utopia of non-imperialist capitalism. Not one fundamental democratic demand can
be realized in the advanced imperialist states to any extent of breadth and firmness,
except through revolutionary battles under the banner of socialism. Whoever
promises the peoples a 'democratic' peace and does not at the same time preach a
socialist revolution, whoever denies the struggle for that revolution now-in this
war-deceives the proletariat." Lenin, Sochineniya, 2nd edition, v. XIX, pp.
49-54.
14Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, New York, 1939, p. 11.
15Ibid., pp. 13-14.
for instance, competition from other countries had, in the last dec-
ades, greatly lessened the super-profits of English capitalism.16
Lenin held out one prospect for the future. Even if no important
revolutionary events were forthcoming from the European war, he
stressed, there was that long-range Achilles heel of capitalism, the
effects of imperialism upon the subject peoples of the world's colon-
ies. Lenin, here citing R. Hilferding's Das Finanzkapital verbatim,
shows how imperialism was creating conditions dangerous to itself
in a colonial world awakening to national consciousness. In addi-
tion to providing the colonial peoples with a rallying point for their
xenophobia, imperialism also gave them means and resources (in-
dustry, training in modern warfare) for the achievement of the
national state as a means to economic and cultural freedom.17 Hav-
ing secured these ends, they could take up the anti-imperialist
struggle. This last point Lenin hardly intended as anything for Bol-
sheviks to rely upon. It emerges in his treatise as a bare whisper,18
perhaps as a final justification of the correctness of Marxist thought,
even if all else should fail for the time being. Whatever its sound-
ness, Lenin could not have wished to stress it. The correct Marxist-
Bolshevik view, as he saw it, was the expectation of more or less
imminent revolution in the West.19
All thought of Asia was pretty well shelved after the abdication
of Nicholas II in March, 1917. Here indeed was the moment Lenin
had dreamed of in 1902. Lenin returned to Russia on April 16 to
take over active leadership of the Bolsheviks. He advanced the claim
that the proletariat, in line with his prophecies of 1902-1905, had
assumed the guiding role in the overthrow of the autocracy. This
point was, at best, highly contestable.20 But if Lenin, in the face of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary, could convince himself of
the fact that his early prognostication had been brilliantly fulfilled,
then it was surely no task for him to foresee the materialization of
6Ibid., p. 108.
17Ibid., p. 121.
18In a much later Bolshevik version, interestingly enough, this idea is listed among
the cardinal doctrines expressed by Lenin in his Imperialism. See History of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course, New York, 1939,
p. 168.
glAccording to Krupskaya, during the last months of 1916 and the early months
of 1917 "[Lenin] was profoundly convinced that the revolution was approaching."
N. K. Krupskaya, Memories of Lenin, New York, 1930-1933, 2 vols., v. II, p. 197.
20See S. W. Page, "The R81e of the Proletariat in March, 1917; Contradictions
Within the Official Bolshevik Version," Russian Review, April, 1950, pp. 146-149.
the next step in the prophecy-proletarian revolution in the West,

sparked by proletarian-led overthrow of the monarchy in Russia.
In 1905, Lenin had disagreed with Trotsky over the manner in
which a revolutionary government, once it had seized power, ought
to behave with respect to world revolution. Lenin held that the over-
throw of the monarchy and the bourgeoisie, by virtue of the pro-
letarian-led peasant-proletarian alliance, was all that could be ex-
pected of the Russian Revolution. The task of the revolutionary
republic, as Lenin saw it, would then be to hold power until the
European revolution, incited by that of Russia, took form. The
European cataclysm thus unleashed would then rescue the Russian
Revolution, while bringing into Russia the technology needed to
make Russia socialist. Trotsky had contended that the numerically
predominant peasantry, ridden as it was with bourgeois leanings,
could not be relied upon as an ally of the proletariat. The revolu-
tionary forces, once the reins of power were theirs, must actively
join the proletariat of Europe in bringing on the revolution. Only an
immediately following European revolution, Trotsky believed, could
save Russia from counter-revolution aided by outside intervention.
In the summer of 1917, in view of the European war which, after
the March revolution, was expected to evoke imminent revolutionary
developments, Lenin considered Trotsky's scheme more timely than
his own. Consequently, he formed an ideological compact with
Trotsky. Once the Bolsheviks had seized power, he virtually aban-
doned his earlier idea of the proletarian-peasant republic in favor of a
dictatorship of the proletariat (his concept of it, at any rate) and
proceeded soon after the defeat of Germany to plunge himself and
his exhausted forces into the task of bringing Bolshevik order out of
the chaos then existing in Central Europe. The Third, or Communist
International, called to life by the Bolsheviks in March, 1919, was
the organizational instrument for achieving this end. At about that
time Bolshevik hopes glowed brightly as Communists seized power
in Hungary and Bavaria. Harried as they were by civil war and
intervention, the Bolsheviks actually hoped to send military aid to
Soviet Hungary.21
However, as in 1914, if not in 1905, the Western proletariat again
failed Lenin. By the end of 1919, the Communist tidal wave had
just about spent its strength in Central Europe, and capitalism had
survived the impact. As on earlier occasions, Lenin tried to glean
21L. Fischer, The Soviets in World Affairs, New York, 1930,2 vols., v. I, p. 195.
what solace he could from the idea of the revolutionary East. On

December 7, 1917, a proclamation signed by Lenin and Stalin went
forth to the "Laboring Moslems of Russia and the East." In this
document, Lenin renounced the colonial policy of Tsarism, thus, in a
sense, declaring the independence of the Moslem nations and thereby
liberating their working classes for participation in the world pro-
letarian struggle. In June, 1920, a Japanese journalist named Fusse
interviewed Lenin. "Where," he asked Lenin, "does Communism
have the best chances for success-in the West or in the East?"
Lenin replied, "Genuine Communism can thus far succeed only in
the West. However, the West lives on account of the East. Euro-
pean imperialist powers support themselves mainly from Eastern
colonies. But at the same time they are arming their colonials and
teaching them to fight. Thereby the West is digging its grave in the
East."22
Essentially, this reply of Lenin's is a restatement of the above-
indicated unstressed portion of his Imperialism. But it clearly re-
veals his ambivalent state of mind regarding the potentialities of
West and East. The Marxist hope, the foundation for Communism
was in the West-but could the workers of Western industry really
be counted on? Perhaps, after all, one must wait for the long slow
process of Asiatic revolution to run its course and allow capitalism
there to dig its own grave.
On September 1, 1920, Lenin bowed further in the general direc-
tion of Mecca. By invitation from Moscow, hundreds of delegates
convened on that date in Baku. Most came from Moslem countries
of Asia and the remarks of Zinoviev, titular leader of the Comin-
tern, were fitted to his audience. In a fiery speech Zinoviev called
upon his "brothers" to join the Comintern in a Holy War, "first of
all against British imperialism."23 The Asiatics waved swords, drew
daggers, and generally exhibited their enthusiasm for such a project.
But, except for causing a ripple of annoyance among British states-
men, this colorful display, at the time, seemed to Western opinion
little more than a defiant gesture. To Lenin it was obviously more
than that, and within the next three years he was definitely to steer
his course in an easterly direction. By 1923 it was fully apparent to
him that capitalism had not only not succumbed but was powerful
enough and (as Lenin believed) was plotting to strike a fatal blow
22M. Rafail, "God bez Lenina na Vostoke," Lenin i Jostok, Sbornik Statei, 2nd
edition, Moscow, 1925, p. 7.
23L. Fischer, op. cit., v. I, p. 283.
against the harassed Socialist fatherland. If this were to occur, what

would save the world revolution? In one of the last articles he ever
put on paper, Lenin held out no hope of rescue by the Western
proletariat. Instead, he decisively linked the fate of Soviet Russia
and of world revolution to Asia.
In the final analysis, Lenin wrote, "the outcome of the struggle depends on
the fact that Russia, India, China, etc., contain the vast majority of the
world's people. This majority has driven itself ever faster in the last years into
the war for its freedom, and, in this sense, there can be no shadow of a doubt as
to the eventual decision in the world struggle. In this sense the final victory of
socialism is fully and unconditionally guaranteed. ... In order to secure
[Soviet Russia's] existence until the final military conflict between the counter-
revolutionary imperialist West and the revolutionary and nationalist East,
between the civilized states of the world and the Eastern remainder, which,
however, comprises the majority-it is necessary to succeed in civilizing this
majority.24
What a contrast is this from 1905, when the Russian Revolution

was to be saved by the proletarian revolution in the West! How
distant it seems even from 1919, when the Western revolution was
already in progress! Indeed, here was a complete break with tradi-
tional Marxism, this looking for world revolution from the majority
of the world's people instead of from the proletariat of the industrial
nations. Such a prognosis of world revolution, however correct it
may yet turn out to be, is more worthy of a Malthus than a Marx.
One Bolshevik explanation of this and other Leninist deviations
from the Marxist norm has been to describe Leninism as "Marxism
in the imperialist era." While there is a good deal of truth in such a
description, it is partially an apologetic for having given up the
crystallized Marxism which was the basis for much of Bolshevism,
while claiming to retain the pristine, orthodox view. It is noteworthy
that even Marx, in his last years, had pretty well conceded that
proletarian revolutions, even in such advanced countries as England
and the United States, were not necessarily inevitable. If Lenin
chose to ignore these opinions of Marx for so long it can only be ex-
plained in terms of his earlier effort to justify the Russian Marxist
party in terms of a Western proletariat waiting for a signal to rise.
Lenin was, in this as' in every other respect, the Machiavellian
politician, ready to seize upon such ideas or slogans as were handy to
advance his cause. But Lenin also had a gift immeasurably valuable
to the crusader-that of being able to build a personal dogma out
24Lenin, Sochineniya, 2nd edition, v. XXVII, pp. 416-417.
of his own rationalizations. Lenin had so long conjured with the

thought of Russian revolution as the beginning of Western revolu-
tion that he forgot that this had become a truth only through his own
faith in it.
With all this, Lenin was too realistic to cling indefinitely even to
self-conceived misconceptions. Thus, when it was clear that the
Russian Revolution had not set off revolution in the West and that,
consequently, the Western proletariat would not save the Russian
Revolution, he was enough of a strategist to retreat and seek rein-
forcements elsewhere. Reluctantly he abandoned an article of faith
that had served him well, and turned his hopes upon the restless
stirrings of Asia, where, industry or no industry, world revolution
was actually in the making.

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Lenin: Prophet of World Revolution from the East

Author(s): Stanley W. Page

PERHAPS the most momentous phenomenon of the twentieth

appearances, included the Asiatic revolution in his thinking for good

The inference here is that Lenin, unable to conceive of a revolution in

In Asia, everywhere, he wrote, "the mighty democratic movement grows,

Whatever the dormant nature of the Western proletariat, and in

to prove beyond question that imperialist wars were inevitable out-

the next step in the prophecy-proletarian revolution in the West,

what solace he could from the idea of the revolutionary East. On

against the harassed Socialist fatherland. If this were to occur, what

What a contrast is this from 1905, when the Russian Revolution

of his own rationalizations. Lenin had so long conjured with the

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